Games people play

[email removed] writes:
>
> While most planets are going to have local games played mostly by themselves
> and nobody else, I would be surprised if some form of Imperium wide sporting
> event wasn't held.  The recent Zhondani teleport hunt is one such possible
> game even if it lacks the violence essential in a real sport ;-) and it would
> not be popular in the Imperium for some small reason.

The Zhodani do better than that - they have a sort of psionic Olympics with a
variety of events.  At least, they did in the days of Traveller (not Mega,
not New Era, just Traveller :-) and Alien Modules.  I have a funny feeling
that there would be very few Imperial participants in these games either.

>				Combat sports (boxing, martial arts)
> also tend to rely heavily upon gravity and thus couldn't go to zero gee.

Maybe not the present-day martial arts, but you can bet that there would be
some sort of zero-G combat.  In fact, there must be, because there's a skill
in it. :-)  So a zero-G martial arts arena would be a cell with no clearly
defined floor or ceiling, just walls with a variety of handles and other things
to grab hold of.  Either the objective is to knock out the opponent or force
a submission, or maybe there is a spot painted somewhere and you have to bounce
the opponent off it.  The absence of gravity would also add a whole new
dimension to fencing, literally.

There would have to be some zero-G version of football, whether it allowed
physical contact between players (zero-G American Football) or forbade it
(zero-G Soccer).

How about zero-G racing?  You need something like a small ring-type space
station, and the objective is to complete a set number of laps of the ring,
preferably before everyone else.  This means bouncing yourself off the outer
wall, possibly the inner wall, and maybe off other racers depending on the
rules.

- --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!uknet!cee.hw.ac.uk!adrian  |  ARPA:  [email removed]

> I had a thought a couple of weeks ago about what kinds of sports and
> games will be played in the Traveller universe.  I discussed this over lunch
> with a friend and we came up with a few decent ideas for sports. [...]
>
> The biggest change I can see is the invention of grav plates which
> allows zero gee fun on any sufficiently high tech planet.  A few obvious
> candidates come to mind: [...]
>
> Some other games will not convert over very well, [...] wresting (the
> real thing not that stupid acting version) would not work.
> Combat sports (boxing, martial arts) also tend to rely heavily upon
> gravity and thus couldn't go to zero gee.

	Uhm, why not?  Wrestling as we know it often relies on
gravity, but that's simply because we've never tried it in a
gravity-less environment.  I can think of a few holds, off the top of
my head, that don't rely so heavily on gravity and could be converted.
Martial arts can be equally adapted.  Hell, there's even a Zero-G
combat skill.

	I recall an interesting short story from an old Far Frontiers
about the first zero-gravity martial arts competition.  Forms and
katas have to be very carefully designed and executed so the artist
maintains control of position and trajectory at all times, and
sparring takes on a new dimension (literally) but that just makes it
more interesting.  There's also nullboxing, as in the novel
Streetlethal by Steven Barnes.  Two boxers (more like kickboxers,
extremely violent sport) in a large plastic sphere.

	As for other sports, well of course the temptation to play
around with zero-g is great, but don't forget other advances, in
medicine, simulations technology, protective gear, etc.  You might see
a lot more violent sports, since the participants can most likely be
restored to healthand hence aren't risking their lives as much.  You
might see things like jousting, duelling, etc, perhaps more medieval,
in keeping with the whole rather medeival feel of Imperial society,
where the weapons are simulated, or where they aren't, but the
participants are wearing the civilian equivalent of battledress, or
they aren't, but full-scale TL16 medical teams are standing by.

	There are also more mechanistic sports; the tl16 equivalents
of car, bike, and boat races.  My previous player in the PBEM spent
several years on the grav racing circuit as a grav mechanic, some on
grav bike races, some on solar-sail grav-skiffs.

Steven J. Owens
[email removed]